In recent years, drugs spread increasingly in the world, and threaten the health of human and peace of international society. The statistic data of World Health Organization (WHO) show that 10 million of people lose normal ability of life and work every year, and more than 100 thousands of people die due to drug abuse every year. WHO divided the substances used as drugs into 8 groups: morphines, barbiturates, alcohols, cocaines, Cannabis indica, amphetamines, Catha edulis (KHATS) and hallucinogens. Others include nicotine and volatile solutions. The morphines, i.e., opioid, include heroin, morphine, which have potent addiction and resistance, and easily develop dependence after abuse. Heroin widely spreads in the world with huge harm. Traditional detoxification methods include substitution decrement therapy, natural withdrawal therapy, sub-hibernation detoxification therapy, antagonist therapy, and non-drug withdrawal therapies such as electric stimulation, acupuncture, physical treatment, etc. The known drugs for detoxification in the world currently are following kinds: methadone, opioid, buprenorphine, clonidine, britlofex, chlorpromazine, for detoxification treatment of heroin dependence. Most of these drugs belong to opiate receptor agonists and sedative-hypnotic drugs. In practices, opiate receptor agonists such as methadone, buprenorphine are commonly used for substitution decrement treatment, mainly alleviating withdrawal symptoms by replacing drugs to inhibit nervous excitation, being slow in detoxification, easy to change into another dependence, easy in poisoning, and easy in addiction. Non-substitution treatments usually use clonidine, for treatment of light or middle opiate-dependence in drug abusers, having better detoxification effects, and many adverse reactions, being not suitable for long-term use. Hibernation therapy usually uses sedative-hypnotic drugs, but these drugs are of great dose, may injure brain nerves, may imperil life when improper use, and are not good to relieve psychological dependence. Naltrexone used for antagonist therapy is a kind of opiate receptor antagonist, the use of naltrexone after detoxification can greatly reduce euphoria caused by drug abuse, block invigorating effects, prevent relapse, but has no obvious effect in improve protracted symptoms, requires long-term administration, so that many subjects cannot insist.
Long-term of drug abuse may cause physical dependence and psychological dependence in drug abusers. The long-term use of opioid may induce the change of body function state. Nerve cells adapt to the presence of drug and generate tolerance. The drug in vivo has to be kept at a certain level to maintain the stability of physical functions. When drug taking stops or is reduced suddenly, nerve cells may occur derepression, exhibiting a series of withdrawal symptoms such as rhinorrhea, lacrimation, yawn, mydriasis, arrector muscle contraction, perspiration, diarrhea, muscular stiffness, spontaneous ejaculation, elevation of blood pressure, pulsation acceleration, fever, insomnia and anxiety and dysphoria, and accompanying with intensive craving for opioid. The occurrence of withdrawal symptoms indicates the establishment of physical dependence. These withdrawal symptoms make subjects suffer may pains, while chemical drugs usually can well control acute withdrawal symptoms, alleviate or reduce pains. However, after detoxification treatment in subjects with opioid dependence, with the gradual reduction of exogenous opioid, the synthesis of endogenous opioid peptide and the increase of opiate receptor cannot reach normal levels within a short term, physical and psychological discomforts would be sustained for a long term, which are called protracted withdrawal symptoms, mainly manifesting as refractory insomnia, anxiety and dysphoria, ache all over, fatigued and weak, dysthymia. Most of chemical drugs show poor effects in alleviating protracted withdrawal symptoms. Generally, psychological dependence accompanies with physical dependence, and psychological dependence refers to psychological drug craving and inner experience of euphoria reached by repeated drug use in subjects with drug dependence, or called “thinking addiction” or “mind addiction”. Being driven by emotion, addicts continuously use drug, thereby change their life style, behavior and personality models. The euphoria and relaxation and tranquility feelings belong to positive reinforcement; while the painful withdrawal symptoms belong to negative reinforcement, inducing reuse of drug to avoid such pains. The two kinds of reinforcement result in addiction in subjects. After acute withdrawal treatment, physical dependence can be eliminated, while psychological dependence can hardly be eliminated, so that relapse rate is relatively high, for example 90% or more as reported, and the reduction of relapse rate is the biggest challenge for detoxification treatment! So far, there is still not a drug for effective treatment of psychological dependence.
Drug abuse is one of public hazards in the world, which is harmful for the abusers and society, and can hardly be withdrawn, has a relatively high relapse rate, and brings tremendous pain and psychological and physical burdens to subjects. Protracted withdrawal symptoms such as malaise and insomnia are main physiological factors for relapse, unappeasable psychological craving for drug is main psychological factor for relapse, drug taking environment and induction from other abusers are main social factors for relapse, so that these psychological, physiological and social factors render easy relapse after detoxification in subjects with heroin dependence. At present, there are near 10 kinds of traditional Chinese drugs for detoxification are approved by State Food and Drug Administration, which are suitable for drug abusers with light, middle drug dependence, wherein the commonly used include “Kangling Tablets” ( ), “Fukang Tablets” (), “Jitai Tablets” (), “Yianhuishang Oral Solution” (), “Lingyi Capsules” (), “Xinsheng Jieduling Soluble Granules” (), “Xiangteng Capsule” () and so on. However, these drugs cannot achieve desired effects in treatment of drug abusers with serious drug dependence, and still have to be used in combination with other medicaments.